The Price of Liberty (Empire Rising Book 4)

by D. J. Holmes

  “COM channel is closed Sir,” King said once he finished. “We are getting new orders from the flagship.”

  “Ok,” James said as he reviewed them. Coward, he thought when he saw the new formation Rooke had sent to the ships escorting Hood. It was Rooke’s mistake that had put them in this position, yet he was putting every ship he had available between himself and the incoming Indian missiles. Their new position called for a more defensive formation, yet Rooke had chosen one that kept him as far away from harm as possible. Hood’s point defenses would be sorely needed, yet her position meant they would not be nearly as effective as they could be when it came to protecting other ships in the formation.

  “Jennings,” James said in as even a tone as he could. “Take us to our new position in the fleet.”

  “Aye Sir,” she acknowledged.

  By the time they were in place, they only had a couple of minutes to wait before the Indian missiles came into range of their flak cannons. Before James knew it, the familiar sound of Endeavour’s two flak cannons firing their rounds could be heard from the bridge.

  Whilst not all the British ships were equipped with flak cannons, most of them were and the area of space directly in front of the Indian salvo was filled with exploding shrapnel. As the Indian salvo flew through the cloud of flak their numbers began to thin.

  “Not enough,” James cursed as the Indian salvo ploughed through and continued to come at their targets.

  “I think we destroyed forty-two of them,” Malik reported.

  “Firing again,” Becket called from the tactical station.

  “We got twenty-eight with our second round,” Malik said a few seconds later.

  As soon as Malik finished speaking, the space around Hood and her escorts erupted in a dazzling light display. Hundreds of green plasma bolts and anti-missile missiles reached out from the British ships to intercept the fifty Indian missiles that were accelerating straight at them.

  In moments fifteen, then twenty-five Indian missiles exploded. A brief lull fell as the AM launchers automatically reloaded themselves. Then more explosions continued to thin out the Indian missiles.

  “Another signal from the flag,” King shouted over the commotion on the bridge. “Flotilla is to hold formation.”

  Damn him, James cursed. “Jennings, prepare an evasive maneuver pattern,” he ordered anyway.

  “On it,” the Sub Lieutenant replied.

  “How long until the flak cannons are reloaded?” James asked.

  “Thirty seconds,” Becket answered.

  “Hold formation Jennings,” James ordered as he counted down the seconds. When he got to ten, time seemed to slow down. The Indian missiles had been reduced to eighteen. There were still more than enough to devastate Rooke’s flotilla of ships. Three of them seemed to be homing in on Endeavour, they were less than eighteen seconds away from hitting his ship.

  In the few seconds he had left, James took direct control of Endeavour’s navigation console and flak cannons with his command chair. The timing was too critical for him to give out any orders verbally and he didn’t have time to explain what he had in mind.

  As soon as the flak canons showed they were ready, James fired. He waited two seconds for them to get off as many rounds as they could before he hit a second button to engage Jennings’s evasive maneuvers. Endeavour was thrown into a sharp nose dive and roll as the ship tried to break away from the three missiles intent on its destruction. Meanwhile, the flak canon rounds flew past the three nearest Indian missiles and exploded right in front of Hood, throwing up one last wall of defense for the flagship.

  James didn’t have time to see whether they helped the flagship survive the coming onslaught or not. His focus was elsewhere. He gripped his hands into a fist as the first Indian missile targeted at his ship overshot its target. Before he could celebrate, the next two exploded as they sensed they wouldn’t get a direct hit. Two waves of thermonuclear energy washed over Endeavour, sending shockwaves through the ship.

  James gritted his teeth and held on tight to his command chair as his command shook violently. While the shaking seemed to last for an eternity in reality it only lasted about a second. As soon as it stopped, alarms rang out from a number of consoles on the bridge.

  “Shut those things off,” James shouted. He had survived enough proximity hits to know his command was more or less in one piece. His main concerns were the engines.

  “Julius, I want a damage report on our critical systems ASAP,” he ordered over the COM channel.

  “On it,” she replied.

  Everyone was working as fast as they could to find out just how much damage Endeavour had taken. With nothing else to do, James forced himself to look at the holo display of the flotilla of ships around Hood to see what the damage was.

  What he saw didn’t surprise him. Two ships were completely missing, the frigate Trust and the destroyer Hawthorn. One of the heavy battlecruisers was also badly out of formation and even as James watched, it continued to fall behind. Hood looked to be intact but when James switched the display to a visual of the flagship he knew she had problems.

  There were two gaping openings right in the middle of her port side missile tubes. Debris and equipment were still flowing out of them into the cold of space and it looked like three or even five of her tubes had been destroyed. Hood’s port broadside had almost been cut by a quarter.

  The only positive thing the holo display showed was that the flotilla was now out of missile range. However, the main part of the Indian fleet was still braking hard as they arrested their momentum and turned to pursue what was left of Hood and her consorts.

  “The flag is requesting a damage report,” Sub Lieutenant King informed him.

  “Tell them we will send it once we have collated one,” James ordered.

  James then set himself to wait patiently for his officers to do their jobs. Eventually Julius contacted him over the COM.

  “I have an initial report ready for you Captain,” she said.

  “Give me the highlights,” James responded.

  “We took two proximity hits,” Julius began. “Both were more than three hundred meters off our starboard amidships. We have lost sensor blisters and three point defense plasma cannons, but the rest of the damage to the hull is superficial. Reactor three went into an emergency shutdown because of the shockwave that hit the ship, but Chief Driscoll is already working on getting it up and running. Our impulse engines are still working at one hundred percent efficiency.”

  “Good work,” James said. “No serious injuries then?”

  “None,” Julius answered. “A few bumps and scrapes but nothing to worry about.”

  James was more than a little relieved but he didn’t have time to dwell on it, the battle was not yet over. “Have you got the damage reports on the rest of the flotilla?” he asked Sub Lieutenant King.

  “On every ship but the flagship,” she responded. “Wrath is badly damaged, she took a direct hit and two proximity ones. She lost one of her impulse engines and there are at least thirty dead. The rest of the flotilla is in good shape though, only a couple of proximity hits among them.”

  “And what about the Indians?” James asked.

  “The main Indian fleet has turned, they are following the squadron that is pursuing us, albeit at a slower pace,” Malik said.

  “More orders from the flagship coming in,” King announced before James could give any more orders himself. “The fleet is to increase speed to 0.31c on the heading of five thirty-four point six. Wrath is being scuttled, all shuttles are to rendezvous with the heavy cruiser to take as many of the crew off as we can.”

  “We’re abandoning her?” Mallory asked in shock.

  James was shocked too but as he put his emotions aside he knew there was no other option. Wrath could never outrun the Indian fleet and any ship that tried to stay with her would just be destroyed or captured as well.

  “Go,” James said to Mallory. “Take command of both sh
uttles, get as many of her crew as you can. If we have to leave anyone behind, we could be consigning them to months or even years in a prison camp.”

  “Aye Aye Sir,” Mallory said, a fresh look of determination on his face.

  For the next thirty minutes, shuttles zipped back and forth from the stricken cruiser to the rest of the flotilla. Rooke’s new course for the fleet stopped the Indians from gaining on them, but it meant Wrath was being slowly left astern.

  “This is the last run,” James said to the bridge as they watched the visual feed from Endeavour’s second shuttle as she docked with Wrath for the third time. “How many crew have we taken off so far?”

  “Nearly five hundred have been ferried to the flotilla so far,” Becket answered. “The final two shuttles are docking now. They should be able to pick up another sixty.”

  “That still leaves almost two hundred and forty,” Sub Lieutenant Scott said from beside Becket at the tactical station. Can’t we go back for more?”

  “Your numbers assume no crew were killed when Wrath was hit,” James said softly. “Her damage report says there are more than seventy dead.”

  “But there are still more crew alive on her,” Scott followed up.

  “Yes, but if her Captain doesn’t scuttle her now the Indians will be able to fire on her. If they hit her with a missile or two they might damage the self-destruct mechanisms. We can’t leave a partially intact Vanguard class heavy cruiser in Indian hands. It’s our latest design, full of technology they would love to get a hold of.”

  “I see,” Scott said, though she still looked like she wanted to protest leaving so many people behind. James understood her feelings, but sometimes there were things more important than lives in times of war.

  “Mallory is signaling to say he is detaching from Wrath,” Malik reported.

  “Very well,” James said.

  Less than a minute after Mallory’s shuttle pulled away, twenty escape pods shot from the ship. The self-destruct count down gave them enough time to clear the blast radius and then the once proud warship tore itself apart as its reactors imploded.

  “It’s finished,” James said, unable to hide the sadness in his voice.

  Rooke’s plan had worked. He had managed to get his fleet around the Indian fleet. Soon Hood’s flotilla would rejoin the rest of the British ships. Having pulled the Indian fleet out of position the door was open for the British to burst their way into the undefended Indian rear colonies. Yet the price had been high.

  On the sensor display there was no sign of Discovery, Lightfoot’s light cruiser Retribution and the two destroyers making up Lightfoot’s squadron. They had obviously managed to slip away unnoticed in the commotion.

  To all intents and purposes, Rooke had accomplished what he had set out to do. However, the cost had been far higher than they had planned for. Worse, the Indians now had the smell of blood in their noses. Even as the different elements of the British fleet converged into a single formation and turned towards the shift passage to Magali, the Indians doggedly followed them. They would no doubt shadow the British fleet until they could bring them to action. Avoiding them was going to be a lot harder with a damaged flagship holding the rest of the British fleet back. However, they were committed now, there was no way back to friendly space except through the Indian fleet behind them. They had to press on with their mission.

  Chapter 6 - Ambush

  From the time of Sun Tzu one proverb of war has always remained true, he who picks the battlefield wins.

  Excerpt from Empire Rising 3002 AD

  8th July, 2467 AD, Haven.

  Major Johnston peered out through the thick Haven forest into the open ground in front of him. Not for the first time, he wished he was still in his combat armor to make use of its enhanced optics. He had used up the last power cell for the armor three weeks ago and since then, he and his squad of special forces marines had been forced to carry on fighting the Indian invaders on foot. Whilst his eyesight was able to focus on distances with far greater detail than the average human, it was still a poor substitute for the zoom on his combat armor’s HUD. The Havenite resistance fighters had their own handheld optics but they did little to boost his already enhanced vision.

  Currently he was crouched just within the cover of the forest at the edge of the large clearing that led from the Indian army’s main supply depot to Liberty, the capital city of Haven. For the past twelve weeks, he and his men had been fighting alongside the resistance fighters in their efforts to kick the Indians off Haven.

  Initially, things had gone well. With Johnston’s help they had changed some of the Havenite tactics and had begun to hit the Indians even harder than they had before. Then reinforcements had arrived. More troops had allowed the Indians to double the strength of their patrols while at the same time launching a new offensive to root the resistance fighters out of Liberty.

  It had been three weeks since the Indian reinforcements had arrived, now, finally, Johnston was about to hit back. He had gathered the largest group of resistance fighters to work together since the first Indian landings. They were just waiting for their targets to arrive.

  Moments later a shrill bird sound caught Johnston’s attention. It was so faint he wasn’t sure if he had heard it or it had just been his imagination. When the sound was taken up again by a source much closer, and then again by an even closer source, he knew the action was about to begin.

  “Sounds like the fun is about to begin,” Clare Edwards said from where she was crouched to Johnston’s right. She had served as his guide when he had first set foot on the planet and since then, they had helped each other out of more than one scrape. When he had first met her she hadn’t carried a gun. Now she held a plasma pistol they had liberated from an Indian soldier.

  “Not just yet,” Johnston said. “We need to let them get as close as they will come. Does everyone know their escape vectors?” he asked.

  He was more than a little anxious about this attack. The majority of the operations he had planned had included his squad of marines and a small contingent of locals. Now there were over forty Havenites hiding in the forest beside him. Even if the ambush worked, they would all have to disappear fast.

  “Yes,” Clare answered. “They know what is expected of them. You just need to worry about making sure we hit the Indians hard. Let them worry about escaping.”

  “Then I guess you better get ready, because in a couple of minutes we are up,” Johnston replied.

  “Any last commands?” Clare asked.

  “Yes,” Johnston replied. “Tell everyone to hold fire until I say so.”

  “As you wish,” Clare responded. Lifting her hands to her mouth she whistled a series of sounds that mimicked a local flying reptile. In moments, the call was taken up and repeated down the line of attackers.

  “Here they come,” Johnston said as he saw the supply convoy appear from behind a large mound that dominated the center of the clearing. They were still over three kilometers away but as the long line of hover trucks and their escorts snaked out from behind the mound, Johnston carefully numbered their enemy. Alongside the twenty supply trucks, there were two light tanks and fifty soldiers in combat armor spread out amongst the convoy. Four of the trucks looked like they were packed with Indian soldiers rather than supplies and so Johnston estimated there were another one hundred Indian foot soldiers they would have to deal with.

  Satisfied he knew what they were up against, he took a step back from his vantage point at the edge of the forest and sought out the two runners he had requested. “Tell Sergeant Briar he is to take out the leading tank, then focus his fire on the soldiers in combat armor,” he said to the first runner. “Lieutenant Moony is to take out the tank at the rear of the column, and then switch to the soldiers in combat armor too,” he said to the second runner. “Is that clear?” he asked them both.

  “Yes Major,” they both replied.

  “Then go,” Johnston said.

  Once they were o
ut of sight, Johnston turned back to peer through the thick Havenite foliage. He waited and watched the convoy come closer and closer. Patiently, he allowed the leading elements of the convoy to pass him by. When the first truck full of Indian soldiers came level with him, he raised the missile launcher he had removed from his combat armor. He took aim and let out his breath. With a squeeze of the launcher’s trigger, he sent a hyper velocity missile straight into the truck’s energy capacitor.

  The explosion fractured the tranquil silence and sent the front half of the truck shooting into the sky. Men and equipment were thrown in all directions and pandemonium broke out within the Indian ranks.

  Before they could even apprehend what they were facing two more missiles shot out of the forest. Both Indian tanks were engulfed in fireballs of their own as hypervelocity missiles penetrated their armor and exploded. Sparing a glance at the nearest tank, Johnston saw that Sergeant Briar had hit the tank’s sweet spot and blown its turret off. It was out of the fight.